I loved Lego as kid, it’s one of the primary reasons I’m a mechanical engineer. The Technic line really ignited a mechanical interest in me and I have many fond memories of assembling complicated sets in record time on Christmas Day. My interest in Lego took a nose dive sometime early in high school.

It’s been over 10 years since I’ve touched a Lego, let alone purchase a set. I thought it would be interesting (and fun) to build a Lego set as a grown-ass man. I figured it would be a fun exercise for the blog now that I have a different perspective on things as an actual engineer. I thought that was a pretty good excuse to purchase something I saw a children’s toy.

I took a few minutes looking at the selection on Amazon and settled on a Technic Tracked Loader (set 42032) that looked interesting and wasn’t too expensive. Two days later the set was on my desk and ready to go.

Here are my reflections on building a Lego set as an adult engineer:

The box does a very nice job of selling the product. Premium glossy packaging!

I forgot about the 2-sets-in-1 bonus of the Technic line, they include a second set of instructions to build something different with the same parts.

Weren’t these boxes noisier? I remember a distinct Lego rattling sound from my childhood that only comes from unopened Lego boxes

Box is jammed full of stuff, that may have dampened the noise

What is this red thing? They changed the color on a lot of the smaller connector pieces to make them easier to identify and differentiate. There are unique parts with red, blue, and tan colors that I remember as only being black.

What are these shafts with end stops? That doesn’t seem convenient, this is definitely a new part.

These instructions are still excellent. Very clear steps for assembly sequences with no written descriptions!

Assembling a set is really about the journey. The picture on the box tells me where I’m going but I have no idea where I started from. It’s interesting to start with a tiny piece of the machine with no context and then build out from there.

These 1:1 scales on the page for measuring shaft lengths are great. I think these existed back in the day but I can’t remember.

Building these sets from the instructions was always a lot of fun but a completely different kind of fun than the creative building when using the same pieces. Interesting the same set can really exercise both halves of your brain.

Lego taught me what a subassembly is before I knew anything about assemblies

These tracks are very tedious to assemble

Done! Took about 90 minutes.

The tracker loader is pretty neat. It uses a worm gear in the back to lift the bucket and two four bar linkages to actuate the bucket tilt and front jaw piece.

Building the set was fun and a nice burst of nostalgia but it’s not something I need to do again soon. I thought it was a little tedious towards the end and I was slightly underwhelmed with the finished loader. I am looking forward to tearing this thing apart and messing around with the pieces though!

I recently upgraded and replaced my Canon T1i with a 70D. The primary impetus for the upgrade was the terrible viewfinder on the T1i which was small, dark, and made manual focus close to impossible. Overall the viewfinder made the camera frustrating to deal with and I neglected proper photography for a few years. The T1i sat in a drawer and was only occasionally pulled out to grab an interesting shot around the house.

The 70D has been amazing in comparison. I learned photography on similar camera, the 40D which has a similar sized body. The body is only slightly larger than the T1i but feels much more solid. Overall I’ve been very happy with the upgrade and I wanted to share my thoughts.

The viewfinder on the 70D is an amazing upgrade. Having the 70D side by side with the T1i is like night and day. The 70D viewfinder is bright and clear and makes manually focusing much easier. Physically the viewfinder is larger and relies on a pentaprism which is much brighter than the T1i

The shutter on the 70D can actuate as quickly as 1/8000 sec which is double the T1i shutter 1/4000 sec. This is great for photgraphing splashing water or birds.

The 70D has built in wifi which can be used as a remote viewing tool and remote shutter when paired with a cell phone. I’ve only played around with it a little bit but it should make wildlife photography a little easier. The range seemed short though, even with a clear line of site.

I found a 70D with the included STM 18-55 kit lens. The lens is pretty amazing in autofocus, mostly because it’s completely silent. The dual-pixel autofocus overall is pretty amazing in the camera.

The articulating touch screen on the camera is a great upgrade from my T1i. I though it was a bit of a gimmick but it’s very utilitarian. The articulation is great for shooting video and the touch screen makes adjusting settings a breeze.

This is a comprehensive list of routers that are compatible with Tomato firmware. The two active communities supporting continuing work on Tomato firmware are Tomato by Shibby and AdvancedTomato. Both are great and have passionate developers contributing to each mod.

I recently upgraded my router and I found it difficult to find a good router that was readily available, compatible with Tomato, and had the features I needed. I decided to make a list of all of the Tomato compatible routers, their features, and the firmwares they are compatible with. I thought this would be helpful for anyone looking for a Tomato router.

Many of these routers are very similar in features and many of the older versions are no longer available. Shibby supports a lot of routers! A word of caution, many of these routers have different hardware versions and some are not compatible with specific Tomato builds. Before you buy make sure you double-check the build compatibility!

I was interested in a recent mid-range router that had dual band coverage, a fast processor, and Gigabit LAN ports. A fast processor is handy when using the router for VPN tunneling, often the processor speed will be the bottleneck for traffic. I settled on the Asus RT-AC68U but a few routers will fit the bill.

Check out these amazing macro shots of US currency. The printing and detail on these is nothing short of astounding. Can you see the microprinting security features? How about the patterned fiber paper? Pull a bill out of your wallet and compare it with these photos. It’s incredible how small the printing is.

These were sent to me but originally taken on a Canon 5D with some custom macro rig. I am getting more details.

Background

I like photography. My father enjoyed it as a hobby and it always seemed like an interesting blend of technology and art. In college I had the opportunity in my senior year to take a digital photography class to fulfill an arts elective.

I learned how to shoot on a Canon 40D and excelled with the technical side of photography. We were required to shoot 100% manually and I found the process very rewarding. I improved my composition and became interested in photography with very short and very long exposures.

After graduation I wanted to continue with photography so I picked up an entry level Canon T1i. I took some great photos with the camera but I was always frustrated with the tiny view finder – it was a world of difference from the 40D. I found the view finder impossible to use manual focus, especially in low light. Everything in the view finder appeared tiny and blurry. Manually focusing through the view finder would just adjust the blurriness – it was impossible to tell where sharp focus was in the scene.

Poor focus through the T1i view finder made photography a frustrating hobby. Manual focus seemed like a core reason to own an DSLR and I was disappointed the camera made it so difficult.

Trading Up

After living with the T1i for a few years I wanted to trade up for something nicer. I started looking at used Canons and I was surprised that many great cameras were surprisingly affordable. I had a budget of about $500 and planned to buy a used body.

My primary requirement was to find a much larger view finder, presumably in a larger body camera. I also wanted to maintain all of the features I had in the T1i, namely the ability to shoot video.

The switch to a full frame sensor was tempting. I didn’t have a large investment in glass so I was open to switching to all EF lenses but this would also have a large impact on my budget. I was happy with the quality of my T1i shots but a switch to a better sensor would make sense. I was never limited by the capability of the T1i but an improvement in low light shooting would have been welcome.

Evaluating the Used Canon Market

I was never familiar with Canon’s whole line of cameras. I heard a lot about the 5D series over the years but I didn’t know a whole lot about the interim series. I learned on the 40D but I didn’t know how that fit into the product range.

Wikipedia has a great timeline and comparison of the EOS range. This was a great starting point. I boiled the comparison chart down to a few key features and I started added used market prices.

This was the basis for my comparison. If a camera isn’t in there it was deemed too expensive (such as the 6D). I read reviews for each camera and developed some further thoughts.

5D and 5D Mark II

I was tempted to jump to a full frame sensor but buying new glass with a new body would blow my budget. The 5D doesn’t shoot video, the Mark II is clunky with video and the body alone was over my budget.

7D

The sensor wasn’t a huge improvement over the T1i but it had a much nicer body and good controls. This hit the sweet spot for my budget.

50D

The next camera after the 40D I learned on. A cheap option but it doesn’t shoot video.

60D

A slight upgrade from T1i in all the right places. Shoots video and it came in slightly under my budget. Plus it takes SD cards!

70D

A more dramatic upgrade from the T1i but slightly above my budget. This camera was a substantial update of the 60D and introduced some new features. Has some nifty autofocus and higher ISO range.

The Finalists – 7D vs 60D

The 7D and 60D were both within my budget and both seem like a great option. Their lifespans overlapped in Canon’s product range and they share similar features. Both offered an improvement over the T1i in body size, max shutter speed, and max ISO.

The 7D only takes CF cards which is annoying because I already had a stack of SD cards.

In a surprising upset the 70D is the winner. I was dead set on the 7D but found a great price on a used 70D. The body and build quality may not be as good at the 7D but they’re more than enough for me. The camera has a great feature set and the video autofocus with the STM lenses are amazing. I’m happy I chose to spend a little bit more and get something slightly better than the 60D.

What is VFIO?

I’ve been hearing about VFIO PCs for a little while now and have been intrigued. VFIO (Virtual Function I/O) allows a virtual machine to have full access to a dedicated GPU. This makes gaming in a Windows VM easy and offers great performance. Dual booting an OS is longer necessary!

I have been seeking a new project and I figured a VFIO build would be fun. After going down the rabbit hole I wanted to share my findings and detail my build.

Wrap Up

That should be everything you need for a nice VFIO machine. I’m running Arch and the RX 480 pass through works great. To get it to unbind from amdgpu I needed to blacklist amdgpu and reboot. Arch gets the integrated GPU.

I stumbled across this album in /r/welding of a pipe laying vessel out in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s always interesting to see specialized equipment for a specific industry. The album covers joint prep, welding, inspection, and laying.